A Noble Quest for an Ornery Rhinoceros
by Macabre Sinclair
Summary: Blaise Zabini is on a Quest. Never mind that he isn't exactly aware of what this Quest may consist of (although it's suspected that it involves at least one rather conspicuous rhinoceros), but - nonetheless - he must Persevere until he gives evil a good t


            Blaise opened the door. It was bright blue.

            Not the door – that was yellow, with a striking red border and doorknob. Rather, the world beyond it was blue.

            He stepped inside, and realised with pleasure that all the blue was water, and he could walk on it. _That'll be something to show Malfoy,_ he thought with no small amount of satisfaction.

            He walked for quite a while, but there was nothing of interest on the top of the sea except for the seagulls, which only called answers to last week's Potions test. He had always thought birds useless, but this was taking it to a new level. He looked about for some kind of life, and was soon able to spot a rhinoceros in the distance, paddling amiably away at the sea. He ran up to it.

            "Hello," he said. The rhinoceros looked up blearily and made an odd grunting noise. "Um," said Blaise, feeling slightly useless and vaguely Hufflepuffian. "What's your name? I mean, I demand you tell me your name."

            "My name is Harry Potter," said the rhinoceros in a voice as deep and cavernous as the Slytherin Dungeons. Blaise looked closer, and noticed that there was indeed a lightning bolt just under the  rhino's horn, and the poor thing did look nearsighted.

            "Well," Blaise said, "that's nice. I really don't care, but you ought to look out for Draco. He hates you. This is Slytherin property, you know. We own the ocean."

            "Do you?" Harry the Rhinoceros asked incredulously.

            "We do," Blaise responded with utmost solemnity. "Gryffindors aren't allowed unless they're property. You could be my doorstop, if you'd like, and I could use you as a shoe-scraper when my boots got muddy."

            Harry the Rhinoceros looked extremely miffed. "Well," it said, in the voice of Queenie Greengrass, "I never!" and paddled off. Blaise watched it, then trudged on, occasionally kicking flying fish when they jumped in the way.

            By and by, he came to a longboat in which Draco Malfoy was sitting and eating an apple. "Hello," said Blaise.

            Draco looked up. "I say!" he said, "this is a truly marvellous piece of fruit. Have a taste?"

            "No, thank you," Blaise said politely. He put his hands in his pockets and fingered a thimble, then wondered where it had come from.

            "Oh, well," said Draco, and took another bite. The juice dribbled down his chin a bit, and it looked suspiciously like the track of a running teardrop. "I say, have you seen Harry Potter?"

            "No," Blaise said. "I think he died a couple years ago."

            Draco wrinkled his nose. "Damnation. I was so looking forward to a new doorstop." He bit into the apple again. "Would you like to come back to the ship? It's much faster by boat, you know."

            Blaise sat down. "Sure."

            The sunset (and he had thought it was midday, imagine) blurred as they raced over the ocean, fast as lightening, and soon they were approaching a massive ship that was all decked out in sails with giant pink Jolly Rogers.

            "Well," said Draco, who was looking more and more like his father by the minute, "I suppose I should take you to see the captain. Be warned, he has a bit of a temper."

            "All right," said Blaise, and followed Draco until they came to a small, cramped room painted all in black with no windows.

            Draco executed a perfect salute, standing tall and rigid. "Oh Captain, My Captain!" He bellowed, and nudged Blaise to do the same.

            "Oh, captain. My captain," Blaise said, rather more woodenly than he had to. He wasn't one for authority figures who hadn't earned his respect.

            Something moved in the darkness, and Snape emerged in full pirate regalia, complete with eyepatch. "Mr Malfoy," he said authoritatively in a voice that froze the marrow of Blaise's bones. "Shiver me timbers. You are late. Five points from Gryffindor for not getting Harry Potter to be your doorstop."

            "I'm sorry, sir," Draco said, "but Pansy Parkinson fell madly in love with him and Sirius Black murdered him in revenge, so I could not get him to be my doorstop."

            "Salt and pepper!" Snape said furiously. "Landlubber! Bilge Rat!"

            Draco bowed his head. "I'm so very sorry, sir."

            "I do not accept excuses!" Snape roared. "As punishment, you will do lines for two hours, 'I will not steal my professor's raspberry jam and then fail to acquire a doorstop', and you will be the Drunken Sailor."

            Draco looked horrified. "No! Please sir, not the Drunken Sailor!"

            But it was too late. Already, the sounds of some kind of string instrument were filtering through the door, and someone was singing.

            "_What shall we do with a Drunken Sailor? What shall we do with a Drunken Sailor? What shall we do with a  Drunken Sailor – earl-aye in the mornin'?_"

            Draco shrieked, and tried to run for it. Neville Longbottom caught him by the armpits and threw him to the floor, whipping out an old, rust-coated razorblade. Blaise's eyes went wide and he reached for his wand as Longbottom bent over Malfoy, the ancient razor flashing menacingly in the bright sunlight.

            "_Shave his belly with a rusty razor!_" The singers crowed, and Longbottom peeled off Malfoy's shirt and proceeded to do exactly that. Fortunately, Malfoy had almost no hair at all on his belly, and his skin was so smooth that the razor just slid by, but it nicked a couple of times and thick blue fluid issued forth.

            "_Way, hey, and up she rises!_" Longbottom cried in triumph, and threw Draco over his shoulder. He walked triumphantly to the edge of the plank and tossed Malfoy into the longboat. "_Sling him in the longboat till he's sober!_" the rest of the crew sang, Pansy Parkinson's voice the shrillest among them. Blaise caught Longbottom by the arm.

            "I can't sit back and watch a housemate suffer," he said. "I'll take his place."

            "You brave soul," simpered Millicent Bulstrode, and batted three-inch-long eyelashes. Blaise recoiled in fear.

            "Okay," said Longbottom. "_Way, hey, and up she rises!_" he continued happily, and tucked Blaise under his arm. He strode across the whole of the deck in two short steps and flung open fifteen-foot high doors, then tossed Blaise inside with considerable force.

            Blaise landed on something soft. He had just begun to congratulate himself on this luck when the next trio of verses burst forth.

            "_Put him in bed with the captain's daughter! Put him in bed with the captain's daughter! Put him in bed with the captain's daughter – earl-aye in the mornin'!_"

            Blaise fairly trembled in fear as he raised his head off the feather pillow and turned his neck.

            Hermione Granger languished wantonly on a tower of colourful satin pillows. She was dressed in very little; the outfit looked to have materialized straight from _Arabian Nights_, and seemed to consist mainly of lavender gauze. A bowl of cherries, so purple they were almost black, rested at her fingertips. She plucked one up and put in on her tongue, drawing it into her mouth with agonizing slowness.

            Blaise blinked.

            "Hello?" he said.

            "Salutations," she drawled, in a completely un-Granger-like voice. "Your punctuality is noteworthy, if the mode of your arrival leaves something to be desired." The cherry, un-punctured, reappeared between shining ivory teeth. She bit down, and the juice exploded inside her mouth, a tiny red trail leaking from the corner of her lips like blood.

            "Yes," said Blaise, who had nothing else to say.

            She stretched out one long, luxurious leg, just barely visible through the translucent cloth of her harem pants. "Well," she said, "with formalities disposed of… Have you procured a doorstop in the form of Harry Potter?"

            "No," said Blaise. He was beginning to regret letting the damn rhinoceros swim off.

            Hermione stood upright, all indignant fury. "Well! I never!" She turned her back to him, flinging wild brown hair into his face. It smelled of cherries.

            "I'm sorry," he said uselessly.

            "Apologies are of no consequence!" she snapped, still refusing to look at him. "If my bridegroom cannot even manage the simple task of obtaining a doorstop, then obviously he is not worthy of my affections! Leave now, insignificant worm!"

            Blaise seized her by the waist in an uncharacteristic display of passion. She squealed. So in a bold voice, he demanded, "If I bring you Harry Potter as a doorstop, will you marry me?"

            She gazed soulfully into his eyes, and said in a voice like boiling ice, "I would consider it."

            He flung her on the bed in triumph, kissing her chastely upon the forehead. "Do not move! I shall return!"

            He marched out the door with extreme purpose, bowling over Longbottom, who was midway in something that seemed to involve drinking a lot of rum and yelling "Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!" at top volume.

            He grabbed Pansy Parkinson by the shirt-collar. "Where is Harry Potter?" he demanded in the tone of one who has a beautiful, lusty maiden in the bedroom and only a stubborn rhinoceros between them.

She tossed her head, and the gold earrings that decked her ears from cartilage to lobe shook and rattled. "I shall never tell!" He tightened his grip and she squealed. "Ow! Okay, okay, he's in the crow's nest, but don't blame me if he throws raspberry jam at you!"

Blaise turned Pansy into a cow and climbed on her back, slapping her firmly on the rump. She let out a resounding Moooo! and unfurled huge purple wings before taking off.

Pansy alighted gracefully on the edge of the crow's nest and Blaise leapt off her back, seizing Harry Potter by the horn as he did so.

"You've caused quite enough trouble for today," he said viciously. "You're coming with me, now, and you're going to be Hermione Granger's doorstop."

Potter looked at him with tragic green eyes and moaned softly. "Yes," he said, his voice rife with angst, "I suppose it is my due, my penance for not being able to stop the deaths… the war… the pain of – OW!" Sensing an extended soliloquy coming on, Blaise had hit the rhinoceros squarely between the shoulderblades with Pansy. She mooed plaintively.

He loaded Potter on to Pansy's back and had her fly them back to the deck, where he promptly engaged Longbottom's help in dragging a resistant Potter to Hermione's door. He dismissed the other boy here, though, unwilling to share the sight of Hermione with any other eyes but his. (Being a rhinoceros, Potter didn't count.)

He flung open the door with flair and marched inside, leading Potter by the horn to the recumbent Hermione. She smiled and sat up.

"Oh, Blaise," she said in a tone that spoke only of words starting in 's'. (Sensuous, and sinuous, and sultry, and sin, and…)

"Hermione, I bring you Harry Potter in the form of a doorstop. Will you marry me?"

Hermione launched herself into his arms and kissed him. She tasted of cherries.

Blaise's eyes flickered open. He stared at the green canopy of his bed.

He blinked.


End file.
